Indie Game Removed from Switch After Dev Reveals It Has a Hidden Code Editor

Post by tylerhou » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 6:17 PM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #18

miki123211 wrote: post #15

In what way was that code editor malicious? Did it allow i.e. creating your own games, modifying other games etc? I don't think so, since I'd expect apps on such platforms to be totally sandboxed. If you could only enter data into it via a keyboard, you couldn't even use it to download programs off the internet, except doing it the 80s "let's retype those ten pages of code into my computer" style.

If it's a full implementation with OS-level access, a USB device that fakes keyboard input could do all kinds of spyware-like stuff with only brief access to the hardware, and without most users even knowing it's possible.

Post by pkroll » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 6:26 PM UTC

ppseafield wrote: post #28

saidajigumi wrote: post #16

The narrative in the article also misses the following point, which I've seen many times over the years, in both game dev and non-game dev shops: It is massively unprofessional to ship an Easter Egg without broad consent to do so. Planning a fun "secret" for your users? Great! Surprising people involved in the publishing pipeline , esp. in a "will I get caught" way? Not so great. That's where Rajan went off the rails…

Indeed. Although this isn't sexually explicit, it reminds me of the trouble Rockstar got in after the Hot Coffee fiasco. Their publisher had to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars. (Edit: pkroll is correct, the final penalties were $21 million.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_mod

Post by httpsterio » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #38

> you can see why Nintendo would take issue with its implementation Actually, I don't see why. The interpreter only runs inside his game. It doesn't root the machine. Why would anyone object to this?

Post by roblabla » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #38

> you can see why Nintendo would take issue with its implementation Actually, I don't see why. The interpreter only runs inside his game. It doesn't root the machine. Why would anyone object to this?

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

httpsterio wrote: post #46

politician wrote: post #25

That's wild because Super Mario Bros contains a built-in code editor (via arbitrary code execution easter eggs), and Nintendo is OK with that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPcV9uIY5i4

Isn't that a bug though and not a feature? Also running the inputs to generate compileable code isn't feasible on the original console because of the required precision of the inputs and only possible on emulators?